


onto a vast plain

by yewgrove



Series: it is what you have. [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post Season 4, Weddings, happy-ish ending, it's still the apocalypse and everything is still awful but they are in love and married, no matter what the trailer says we are trusting comfort, sticking it to beholding via the power of love, wedding vows, written pre-s5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23429935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yewgrove/pseuds/yewgrove
Summary: The world ends. They get married.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: it is what you have. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685461
Comments: 49
Kudos: 417





	onto a vast plain

**Author's Note:**

> this is technically a sequel to [ready to call this love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21981346) but really all you need to know is that jon and martin are engaged
> 
> no major character death or graphic violence, BUT warnings for oc death, some horror/gore, and general apocalyptic sadness
> 
> title is from rainer maria rilke, 'onto a vast plain'.

The world goes wrong.

Martin’s arms are around him, Jon can sense vaguely. They’re too tight, the recent tender familiarity of Martin’s embrace betrayed by tension, and the Archive within Jon can feel that Martin is scared. He can _taste_ Martin’s fear in the air, boiling thick and copper like blood in water. It hurts. He wants to learn what Martin’s afraid of, to search out all the details of that fear, to trace it to its fullest depth and pluck Martin’s nerves out at the root. He wants, urgently, to throw up. He wants Martin to be okay.

Shutting his eyes helps, a bit, but it’s difficult. He keeps them shut anyway, forces his fists against them, trying to quiet the urge to Know in the repetitive, wavelike flares of darkness. He's stopped laughing, at least, although his breath is still coming out in hideous pounding bursts.

‘Jon,’ Martin’s voice says. ‘Jon, listen to me.’ He doesn’t say _Look at me_.

‘I’m trying,’ he says, because it’s all he can manage, woefully inadequate. Martin should know that Jon tried. _Jon_ is a loose concept at the minute, but whatever Jon is, or was, he tried.

‘I know.’ Martin’s jumper is a fierce tangle of wool, scouring Jon’s cheek to bleeding. Or maybe the hot wet he can feel there is tears, rather than blood. ‘It’s al— it’s alright, I know.’

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ Even the sick crawl of Beholding within him, the pulse that wants to sink into the abundance of fear, to draw it out of every available source, doesn’t want to _hurt_ Martin. But it doesn’t want him to stop hurting either.

‘You wouldn’t,’ Martin says seriously.

‘I have.’ Jon knows he has.

'I mean, in the past, sure,' Martin says. 'There's a difference between being a dick about my research skills and, and, supernatural harming me.'

The conversation is helping. Martin is helping. Jon tries to quiet his breathing, to focus on the exchange. If he just listens to the sounds, and not the words, this could just be another day. He's shown more of his own weakness to Martin than he'd planned, during the weeks at their — Daisy's — safehouse, because as much as he'd wanted to be strong and unshaken, to put his own mess out of the way and help Martin, it turns out you can't go from constant stress and fear to quietness and safety without the weight of it all catching up with you once you've finally got the space to feel it. He's had his fair share of panic attacks against Martin's sweaters.

'I don't know what I'm capable of any more. I don't know what I _am_ ,' he says. 'I just ended the world.' There's no way to not make that sound ridiculous. Martin makes a hysterical sort of chuckling noise that's nothing to do with actual laughter, all the terror of an animal caught in a wire.

'It wasn't your fault.'

Jon shifts to protest, and Martin cuts him off. 'It _wasn't your fault_ , Jon. I know you're going to keep arguing with me about that, because you're the most stubborn man in the world, but can we just — save it for later, yeah? We should work out a plan. Run now, argue later, all right?'

Jon opens his eyes again. The flood of fear resounding inside his head kicks up a notch in volume as he does so, but he needs to look at Martin. Martin’s eyes are swimming with terror and helplessness, but he's still here, still talking. It's like trying to put a plaster on the wound Jon's ripped across the entire world. Jon loves him, with a love so heavily riddled with fear that it's painful: fear of losing him, fear of hurting him, fear that he'll see what Jon has become and leave, fear that he'll stay and Jon will do something worse.

'You're scared,' he tells Martin, and Martin actually lets out another helpless snort at that.

'Yeah, Jon. Yeah. I'm terrified. But I'm not scared _of you_.'

Jon's heart is swollen and thick and sideways in his ragged throat. He swallows, since talking is a little bit beyond him. Martin gives him a tiny helpless aching smile of understanding.

'Right,' he says. 'I think I should go down the payphone, ring Basira. Check on the village, too, God. I don't know what's happening out there.'

'Basira… won't answer,' Jon autocompletes. His head hurts. He didn't even have to reach for the knowledge; as soon as her name brushed his hearing his mind was awash with images of close walls, hands slamming into stone, cramped elbows. The Knowing helps him think more clearly. He jerks away from it, with an effort.

'Right,' Martin says, 'Georgie and Melanie, then,' and waits to see if Jon comes up with anything.

And — oh. That’s weird. There’s nothing there, no images or details of sensation, just an odd lurching feeling, as Beholding tries to provide Jon with an image drawn from the tumult of fear that’s pouring over the world, and comes up short. It’s like worrying your tongue into the hole where a tooth used to be.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, in answer to Martin’s mute inquiry, and feels his brow crease against the strange ridiculous sourness of the words. He should savour them, he thinks. Probably won’t get much chance to say them, nowadays.

‘Oh,’ says Martin. ‘You don’t —’

‘I can’t _See_ them. Not getting anything.’ He directs a strand of his thoughts towards the Admiral, and is met with that same absence.

‘Right,’ Martin says, clearly worried. ‘Do you think they’re… okay?’

‘I think I’d know, if they weren’t.’ Following any one thought to its end is difficult; it’s hard to hear against the pounding of the world he’s broken in his ears. ‘Georgie can’t feel fear. If I’m currently — _feeding_ — information from everyone who’s afraid —’

‘Then maybe she’s, I don’t know, shielding them.’ Martin nods. ‘Nothing there to archive. Makes sense.’

Jon emits a weak sort of snort. ‘As much as anything does, now.’

‘Yeah.’ Martin’s still holding him, kneeling in front of him with his hands round Jon’s shoulders, curved in towards him like a shield. ‘Right. I’ll go call them. See where they are, if they’ve got any ideas.’

Even if they find out where Georgie and Melanie are, Jon can’t imagine it would do them any good for Jon to find them. It might be a pointless distinction, in a world that’s entirely fear, but being anywhere near Jon is probably likely to be — unsafe. Harmful. Then again, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be safer anywhere else. Maybe it’s selfishness on Jon’s part: if they’re all going to suffer regardless, what difference does it make what’s causing it, whether it’s Jon or some other avatar of some other fear? Selfish of Jon, not to want to be the monster that’s hurting the people he cares about.

So he agrees with Martin about the payphone, and doesn’t bring it up. Chokes it down, just like he chokes down the fear that’s eating him from the inside out, suggesting that he should tell Martin that maybe Martin would be safer somewhere else, somewhere away from Jon. It’s not like there’s anywhere safe to go.

‘I don’t think I can come with you to the payphone,’ he admits to Martin instead. ‘Don’t think I can be outside yet.’ He can feel the unending, roiling stare of the sky even through the roof. Out there, with nothing between them, it would be easy to lose his grip entirely, whatever ragged ends of self he’s got left unravelled or subsumed.

‘No, of course not.’ Martin’s look has become, somehow, even more concerned. He’s looking at Jon like he understands, like despite everything Jon has become and everything he’s done, he’s still entitled to _weakness_ , still deserves to have his failings met with kindness. Jon’s eyes are swimming and burning, he notices, and remembers to blink, to let the tears escape.

‘You’re looking a little better,’ Martin’s continuing. ‘It’s — a lot to take in, I guess, if you could put it like that. Hopefully you’ll acclimatise? But for now, yeah, stay indoors.’

He moves to stand up. Apparently worry isn’t something the Archive wants: Martin’s concern and affection for Jon is diluting his fear, dimming it, making it harder for Beholding to find purchase. Some of the pounding pressure recedes.

‘You’re coming back,’ Jon jolts out, as Martin stands up, turns towards the door.

‘Oh, Jon.’ It’s hard to understand how Martin can still be capable of the pulse of affection that runs through the words. ‘Of course I am.’

‘It’s bad out there.’ _I don’t want you to get lost again,_ he doesn’t say, because Martin already knows, just like he knows that no matter the danger, Jon will never choose to leave. ‘Stay safe and get back,’ he says instead. It means the same thing. All his words at the minute are meaningless in the face of what he really means, which is _I love you_ , and _I’m sorry_.

‘You’ll be alright ‘til I get back?’ Martin asks.

‘I’ve already ended the world today, Martin, I’m not sure there’s much worse I can do.’

‘ _Not_ what I meant.’ Martin fixes Jon with a look, as his hand worries at the doorknob. ‘I’ll be back soon, Jon. Promise. I love you.’

Then he’s out the door, and there’s nothing for Jon to do but force his eyes closed against the deluge, and wait.

*

It’s easy enough to walk to the phone box, provided Martin keeps his head down and focuses on the track in front of him. One foot after another. The sky is above and around him and it twists and shimmers in weird zinging pulses that — well, they make him feel a bit nauseous, if he’s honest. He keeps his head down, and stubbornly ignores the new turnings off their well-worn path that weren’t there earlier, and he only lets out a few sobs on the way.

The phone box is a little ways outside the village, which — oh. He should probably be glad of that, he thinks, as he crests the little hill and hears the sounds coming from the direction of the little cluster of buildings. There’s a fiddle, maybe, he thinks? Some sort of string sound folding wetly under the — well, the other sounds. The part of him that wants to do a good job investigating itches to get him to listen closer, but he stamps on that thought, violently. It’s not like Jon needs to rely on Martin’s investigations any more, after all. Probably the less detail Jon’s exposed to the better.

Martin thinks, with a sudden overwhelming rush of grief, of Mrs Aird down the shop, of all the other faces that he and Jon had been nodded at and chatted to by, nothing big, just the little corners of safety they'd scraped out for themselves at the edge of this community. They hadn't been there long enough to get really established, but it had felt — real. All those lives. People who had nothing to do with any of it. And now, the best-case scenario is that Martin will never see any of them again, because if he does, there's no telling what they might be. Judging from the noises —

He takes a couple deep breaths, hearing and hating their shakiness, as though it's a noise that someone else is making. Phone call. Phone call, then home.

He opens the door to the phone box, reaching into his pocket for some change. Just in time, his eyes meet his reflection in the pane of the door. It’s hollowed, stretched, smiling.

‘Ah,’ he yelps, and lets go of the handle like it burns. ‘Ah, uh-uh. No you don’t.’ The phonebox doesn’t _have_ a door. Martin knows it doesn’t, because he’s complained about it to Jon before, about the inconvenience of making a call with the wind nipping around you the whole while, trying to nick the shopping. He’d made sure to play up his lament in the telling, until he’d been able to feel a chuckle vibrate through the warm weight of Jon pressed against his side.

Anyway. The phone box _doesn’t_ have a door, is the point.

‘No you don’t,’ he says again, helplessly, and takes another deep breath, and kicks the unfamiliar door shut, closing his eyes tight. When he opens them again, the door is gone, the payphone sitting there like normal. Right. Fine. Good job, Blackwood. One down — the rest of existence to go, apparently, unless they can figure out _something_ to do about it.

Which is why he’s supposed to be calling Georgie and Melanie. Right.

Georgie’s voice, through the staticky connection, is tense. ‘Hello?’ she says, and then as Martin takes a moment to swallow the relief of hearing her, ‘If that’s monsters, I am not above smashing this phone to pieces, so. You know. If you’re human, get on with it.’

‘Not monsters,’ Martin hurries. ‘It’s Martin. Martin Blackwood. I’m with Jon.’

‘Martin,’ she says, clearly surprised. This is followed, almost immediately, by an ‘Is Jon all right?’

‘What did he _do_?’ Melanie’s voice bleeds over in the background.

‘He’s —’ How in the world is Martin supposed to answer that question? No, Jon isn’t all right; by any _normal_ standard none of them are all right, not when the whole world is so, so wrong. ‘He’s alive, and he’s not in any immediate danger, neither of us are. You two —’

‘We’re okay,’ Georgie says, with a little bit too much determination. ‘There’s a lot going on, and I don’t understand any of it, and I’m really hoping you or Jon have got some answers.’

Martin realises he doesn’t know how much Georgie knows already. He assumes Melanie will have filled her in — but then again, maybe not. Maybe, in normal life, people don’t build their relationships out of unloading a whole bunch of supernaturally traumatic revelations on each other.

‘Can I talk to Melanie?’ he asks.

‘Why?’ There’s a sharpness to Georgie’s voice at that.

‘It’s okay, Georgie.’ Melanie sounds — tired. Granted, Martin hadn’t been paying too much attention during Peter's tenure at the Institute, but he remembered her sounding a lot more intimidating. The edges of this Melanie's voice are softened. He reminds himself not to mistake that for blunted.

'If you're sure,' Georgie's saying.

'I mean, I don't know what my therapist will have to say about it, but given what's going on outside, I don't think this is something I'm going to be able to maintain any meaningful distance from.' There's a crackle, as the phone is passed over, and then Melanie's voice, clearer.

'Hi, Martin,' she says.

'Melanie.' Martin closes his eyes, briefly, against their sudden stinging. 'Are you — how're you doing?'

'Better,' she says. 'At least, I was, right up until the bedroom walls all started bleeding. What's going on? Jon —'

'It's not his fault.' Martin takes a deep breath, trying to calm the sharpness of his tone. 'Sorry. It's been a really, really rough day.'

'Start at the beginning?'

Martin almost laughs. Where to start. Whatever's happening has been building for longer than any of them have been alive, and it's all probably going to prove horrible in a bunch of unimaginably horrible new ways that Martin doesn't even know about yet, let alone know how to explain. He tries to sort out what he's been able to gather of Jonah's plan in his mind. What actually comes out, when he opens his mouth, is 'Would you like to come to our wedding?'

*

By the time he hears the door open again, Jon's feeling… better. There's no other way to put it. It's still overwhelming, the constant howl of fear that's funneling into him, but it's not unbearable.

He remembers, vaguely, some advice about giving food to people who've been hungry for a long while. You can't have too much at once, after having been starving; you're not used to it; it'll hurt you. He doesn't remember where he heard that, or whether it's something new, information from Beholding or someone else's memory filtered from the deluge of fear. However he came by it, it seems… apt. The part of him that he's been denying so rigorously, the craving to Ask and See and Know, is _full_ for the first time, full to bursting, and now that the first shock is wearing off and he's acclimatising, Jon feels… good.

The thought scares him. But it also gives him an idea.

'Jon?' Martin's voice, the clink of the door, reach him over the warped metallic howl of the outside.

'Martin,' he says. His perception of Martin slips, a little, as the ever-present fear is muddied with relief and love.

'Thank god,' Martin says. He appears around the corner, walks over to where Jon is — which is, apparently, still sitting on the floor, with the dawning awareness of a blanket itching about his shoulders. Jon watches him approach, loves the fold of his concerned mouth, loves the pull of his shoulders, loves the crease at the corner of his eyes as he bends down to brush a kiss to Jon's forehead. 'How are you feeling?'

Afraid. Guilty. Numb. Sick. Strange. New. Alive.

'Functioning,' he goes with. 'You were right, I do seem to be… acclimatising. How about you?'

'I got hold of Melanie and Georgie,' Martin says. There's a worry floating at the edge of his expression that Jon can't place, and Jon feels his stomach twist with a sudden, bitter flood of anxiety. 'They're both fine, they're okay. And the Admiral, too,' Martin continues, and the worry is replaced by relief, and a strong rush of gratitude to Martin for making sure to find out.

Melanie and Georgie are planning to leave London, it transpires. Not that one place is going to be any safer than another, but something about the concentration of London, the boiling and fissuring of so many people's realities, feels particularly volatile to Jon. With the Institute and the Panopticon there, it's hard not to think of London as the seat of Jonah's power.

If Jon isn’t, that is.

Anyway. Getting out of London can't hurt.

'I've arranged a point to meet them,' Martin says, and that brings Jon up short a bit. He knows how smart Georgie is, how fiercely protective she can get of the people she cares about. He is, tentatively, friends with Melanie, knows her sharpness and her sense. He'd have assumed that the both of them would been more reasonable than to actively try to seek out Jon. 

'Are you sure that's a good idea?' he asks, frowning slightly. Outside, the steel-warped howl of the sky blends with the faint strains of a fiddle, and Jon Knows that the villagers have almost finished their work. His stomach lurches richly. 'You did tell them —' The _what I did_ goes unspoken.

'It was Georgie who suggested it, actually,' Martin says. 'Melanie thought it was mad too, at first, if that helps. But we've got a theory.'

'Oh?' Suffused with so much knowledge, curiosity is an irksome thing.

'It feels quieter in here than it does out there. You're the Archive, right? Your, I don't know, _purpose_ , is to collect all the fear, all the knowledge of all the horrible things that are happening out there right now. But it's not — as bad — here. Georgie suggested that you might be a sort of calm spot at the centre of all the fear.'

'The Eye of the storm.' The humour tastes dry on Jon's tongue. He lets himself enjoy it for a moment, the mundane humanity of the joke. Whistling in the dark.

'Yes. Sort of.' Martin still seems worried.

'I suppose we don't have any real evidence to go on,' Jon says, capitulating. He still doesn't quite like it. That selfishness again, not wanting it to be his fault when they get hurt.

It's already his fault, of course. Everything that’s happening is his fault.

'And… I would like to see them.' This comes out creakier than he intended. He clears his throat. 'What else?'

'What?'

'You're nervous about something else,' Jon says, and Martin gives a small laugh.

'No keeping secrets from you, is there,' he says, a little ruefully.

'I didn't,' Jon starts, and then has to take a pause, to double check, because it's hard to tell what he Knows from what he knows. But he’s almost certain that this is all Jon, all the remnants of the man who looks at Martin Blackwood, and loves him, in the ordinary way. 'I just mean — you've got a look about you. I know how you look. Lower case, that is.'

'I know, Jon.' Martin's fingers touch Jon's cheek briefly, a silent apology of a caress. 'It's all right. It's silly, really, given everything. It's just — I told Georgie and Melanie about us.'

'Oh,' Jon says.

'Asked them to our wedding, actually,' Martin says. 'I should have checked with you first, sorry. But I wanted them to know. Even if we never get around to actually. Well, this way it's something like witnesses. You're the most important thing in my life, Jon, and I don't want to — ' His voice hitches, wobbles briefly, before he pulls it back under control. 'To _die_ , without having told anyone. At least this way there might be someone left who knows.'

The heart is an extraneous organ to what Beholding wants to make him; it pumps in his sunken chest still, but if it were to stop Jon doubts he'd notice. Certainly not immediately. Right now, it feels like it's bleeding.

He hadn't even considered, hadn't had time to consider, what this might mean for a wedding. If he had considered it, it would have been to dismiss the idea of getting married as one more thing lost to the ruining of the world; another aspect of normal life to regret. Even if it were still possible, the idea that Martin might still want to marry him —

'Martin,' he starts haltingly. 'I am never going to leave you, I promise you that. But you have to know,' the words shudder violently in his mouth, 'that I won't hold you to anything you don't want to be held to.'

'What does that mean?' Martin's voice is sharp.

'Things have changed.' Obviously, Jon; get to the point. 'I've changed. Neither of us know yet what I've changed into. When you said yes, you agreed to marry a man who was still, at least partially, human.'

'Don't,' Martin says.

'I _will not leave you_ ,' Jon repeats, and he pushes as much conviction as he can into the words. 'No matter what. Who knows, loving you may be the only good thing I'm capable of any more, the only remnant of something that passes for humanity.' He ignores Martin's involuntary protesting shake of his head at that, lets himself smile, allows himself to relax minutely into the aching softness of the expression. 'The fact that I am still able to love you is a gift which I do not intend to waste. But I feel it needs saying, nevertheless. If you feel, at any time, uncomfortable with the idea of being with what I have become, I'll understand. That's all.'

'Right,' says Martin, and wipes his eyes on the sleeves of their sweater. 'Are you quite done?'

'I — suppose so.' The taken-aback affection feels normal. Beholding aches sickly at its presence in Jon's chest.

'He's literally capable of knowing anything, and this still happens,' Martin says to the ceiling. 'Idiot.'

'I love you,' says Jon.

'I love you too. I'm still going to marry you. End of the world notwithstanding.'

'Right,' Jon says, because there's not much else to say to that, really. The howl of the outside threatens to abrade his awareness like sand, and his consciousness lurches a little bit more with new fear.

Not Martin's fear, though. And, while he's looking at Martin, not Jon's either.

*

Leaving the safehouse is upsetting.

Martin's not really used to places feeling like home. The house he'd grown up in hadn't ever managed it. He'd tried with his flat in London, organised his bookshelves a new way every week, tried picking up flowers on his way home and leaving them to brighten things up in one of the horrible mugs he picked up at the charity shop because a home ought to have a horrible mug collection, but even before Jane Prentiss had given the place a host of unpleasant memories, it'd always felt like it was missing something. And it's not like the Institute's exactly a home-sweet-home sort of place.

Daisy's safehouse had been. From the lumpy, mismatched furniture to the quaint whitewashed walls to the really quite alarmingly well-stocked basement — despite the obvious disuse, the house felt like a place that was meant for them to live in. It hadn't quite been love at first sight, since the night they'd first arrived, Martin had been too exhausted to notice anything apart from 'door locks' and 'bed'. But the next morning he'd woken up to a rare, luminous sunshine filigreeing the cracks at the edges of the wooden shutters and warming the grey in Jon's hair to a kinder brass. He'd got up and gone to discover whether Daisy's provisioning extended to tea, and somewhere in between memorizing each gentle creak of the stairs in the quiet air and sorting through the extensive collection of ugly china in the cupboards, the house had worked its way into his heart.

Jon's sad to be leaving too, Martin can tell. He's being worse about it than Martin is, actually. Martin had found him earlier standing in the living room beside the stove, so still that Martin's heart had jumped into his throat, until he realised what Jon was doing, which was staring intently at the room as if trying to commit every single detail to memory.

Knowing that Jon will miss it too does, in fact, make Martin feel better about leaving. He's not an idiot. He knows full well that for all the house's charm, it's Jon that had made it feel like home. Jon, sitting on the warped floorboards by the stove, leaning against Martin's legs with a deliberate hint of pressure while he insults whatever book Martin's reading aloud, the near-constant softness in his voice taking any pretense of harshness out of his words. Jon, swearing as he got the knack of using the range, turning the kitchen from a postcard-picture of rural quaintness to a chaos of dirty dishes (more dishes than Martin's ever used on cooking a single meal in his entire life). That sort of happiness isn't intrinsic to the house; it's intrinsic to Jon. Was intrinsic to Jon. But even so. The house was a place they'd both loved. The right space for them, the right angles for them both to fit into, and the space to learn to fit into each other.

Plus, Martin's a poet. He's allowed to be maudlin.

He takes Jon's hand with his bag-free one as they get ready to leave. Jon looks down at their hands, visibly reeling himself back in, and runs his thumb tiredly over the bumps of Martin's knuckles, and they step out over the threshold together.

Overhead, the sky pulses. Martin pulls the hood of his hoodie up over the beanie he's already wearing, irrationally, trying to block out some of the horrible weight. Jon's shoulders tense, roll, relax, but he doesn't comment, just reaches into his pocket for the keys.

He drops them back into his pocket, after. 'Just in case,' he says, even though Martin hadn't asked. 'If we run into Daisy or Basira, we can give them back.'

'Is that... likely?' Martin asks, because he can't help it.

Jon's eyes are tired. They seem to glow, darkly, in the wind.

'No,' he says. He doesn't elaborate further, and Martin doesn't ask, just gives Jon's hand a little squeeze and starts the half-a-mile trudge through the fields towards where they'd left the car.

This far from any meaningfully-sized population centres, there aren't any other drivers on the roads. By unspoken agreement, Martin takes them around the outskirts of the village. The music has stopped, and a rustling, humming drone has settled in the air instead. Martin feels it rather than hears it, vibrating ever so slightly through his bones, making his jaw ache and crack and crawl. The tarmac beneath the wheels of Daisy's car is spongy in places, sweet with decay.

They drive until the car gives out. At first they sit in silence, Jon staring out the passenger window with an almost dreamlike concentration, as Martin gets steadily more and more antsy. Then his anxious tapping on the wheel seems to make it through Jon's reverie. The lines around his eyes deepen as he scowls. At himself, Martin presumes, and opens his mouth to say — something. Something helpless, he doesn't know what, just something to try to distract Jon from that grim self-recrimination. Before he can get the words out, Jon beats him to it.

'Talk to me?' he asks. There's the hint of something bitter in the twist of his voice, but it irons out as Martin turns to glance at him. 'I need… something to focus on. Something to keep me grounded.'

They both do. Martin doesn't doubt that Jon needs grounding, but he also doesn't have any doubts at all that Jon's asking for Martin's sake, giving Martin something to pay attention to, in an attempt to keep him from driving off the road in his nervousness, or letting the car steer itself into the Lonely. The transparency of the request, and the care, flood heat through Martin's chest. 

They chat about whatever nonsense Martin can drum up for the rest of the drive. Rather, Martin talks and Jon listens intently, humming along, and occasionally dropping in a comment. Jon makes a few stubs of sepulchral joke, every single one of which, without fail, takes Martin at least ten seconds to pick up on; Jon's eye-rolling at Martin's lack of reaction is funnier by miles than any of the humour had been. Eventually — sooner than it should have — the car stutters to a halt, and when Martin suggests opening the hood to check, Jon's eyes go all still-liquid for a second, and then he's grabbing Martin's arm and dragging them away from the vehicle as it explodes; more than explodes, _liquifies_ into a searing, blistering inferno.

The bags they'd packed survive, pulled from the cataclysm. Food, clothing, medical supplies — it's all barely scorched, but it's covered in a fine, soft layer of what Martin realises is paper ash. The few photos they'd had developed in the tiny print shop in the village, the Shel Silverstein book Martin had nicked as being the only decent poetry in Daisy's collection. Martin's notebooks; the folder of statements for Jon. All gone.

It should be convenient, that most of their supplies are untouched, Martin thinks. It doesn't feel convenient. It feels like a threat.

They keep moving on foot. What else can they do?

*

They're in a town somewhere near the Scottish border when Jon gets his first chance to test his idea. It's a small town, with no signs of movement in the streets. All the street lights are blown out, all the curtains closed and shops shuttered.

It's been a little over a week since they left the safehouse, Jon's almost certain. Martin's phone is out of charge, and they're refusing to turn Jon's on unless they absolutely have to, attempting to save its battery for coordinating their rendezvous with Georgie and Melanie. It's hard to keep track of the time, and Jon's Knowing is not nearly as helpful a thing as you'd expect, he reflects. They've tried it a few times — Martin will ask Jon what day it is, and Jon will allow himself to be caught off guard, allow the instant surge of information to well up his throat and flood the roof of his mouth. The first time, he'd given what they both agreed was the right date, according to their reckoning. The second time, the Eye had seen fit to bestow the gift of knowing the date according to an unknown calendar from several thousand years ago, in an incomprehensible language that dripped like blood from Jon's mouth.

('Great,' Martin had said, with a chuckle that was somehow unstained by nervousness. 'My boyfriend is the world's worst Siri.'

'Fiance,' Jon had reminded him, an obvious play to win himself the selfish reward of watching Martin's smile grow wider, fonder.

Sure enough, Martin had bumped his shoulder against Jon's with a grin. 'Excuse me, Apple support? I think my Siri fiance is cursed —')

Jon thinks about those moments. He thinks, hard, about Martin's smile, Martin's determination, Martin's irrepressible caring. He forces the instants to play out, again and again, before his eyes. Drowns his mind in them, to the exclusion of all else.

It's getting more difficult to do so. With every passing day, the fear of the world crescendos; the relief of it satiates his lungs. Cutting himself off from the torrent of fear is like being transported to another planet, one not built for him — the atmosphere is alien, muffled, the air too thin; the wrong pressure pulsing behind his eyes.

They've split up when the chance comes. Martin's off looking for food and supplies, and Jon's sitting with his back to the war memorial at the deserted town centre. It's midafternoon, the pale sun bleeding sluggishly through the clouds, doing absolutely nothing to warm the chill stone at Jon's back.

He Sees it before he hears the coughing, the figure dragging itself across the cobbles behind him, round the other side of the memorial. Cramping knees, thin printed fabric dress. The shell shrapnel, incongruous, lodged in her side. Not a threat. An opportunity.

He stops touching the memorial, because while he's not sensing any more imminent danger from it, he is not, in fact, a stupid man. Grabs the bag with their medical kit in it, and walks round the other side of the square.

The woman is crumpled against one of the graffiti-ridden benches facing the war memorial. She looks to be in her fifties, Jon thinks. Grit from the cobbles is sticking to her blood-smeared hand, stinging her side as she grips and presses at the swollen wound, clearly frantic with pain and shock. The air around her is swimming with a hot haze of fear, translucent and thick in the air like a mirage. Jon blinks, and sees the shrapnel, knows the make of the shell it came from, knows the date of its manufacture and the hands that worked it over a hundred years ago, knows the blistering howl of its explosion, the taste of trench mud. It would be so easy to keep Knowing, to draw the fear out of the woman, drink it in, learn what the memorial has forced her to feel.

He fumbles in the bag for gauze and antiseptics. His hand lands, inevitably, on the shape of a tape recorder instead.

'It's all right,' he says, inadequately, and curses himself as she jerks, her cry of surprise wrenching into another hoarse cough. Flecks of blood catch in the sunlight.

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I'm here to help.'

Even without Beholding's assistance, Jon can tell that nothing their first aid kit holds will be enough.

'I'm sorry,' he says again. 'Wh-what's your name?'

He fights to scrape any hint of compulsion away from his tongue. Without it, his voice sounds hollow, broken.

'Caitlyn,' the woman says. Her eyes are swimming. She pushes herself up a little, desperately searching for Jon's gaze. Whatever she sees makes her recoil, a new pattern of fear bursting in her mind. 'I was just leaving —'

Beside her scrabbling hand, a wreath of dull plastic flowers sits against the stone.

'I saw things,' she says. 'When I touched it.'

'Caitlyn—'

She waves him quiet. 'You want to know, don't you? I'll tell you. If you'll just make it stop hurting, you can have it all, I promise. Please.' The tears are spilling from her eyes now, running down the creases of her cheeks.

'I can't.' Jon's aware, numbly, that his body is panicking. 'Caitlyn, I'm so sorry, I can't. I can't make it stop.'

Her gaze meets his again. It's level, this time. 'I'm dead.'

'Not yet.' What sense does that make? How is that useful? Biting his tongue out would be easier, he thinks. Monsters aren't renowned for their bedside manner.

'I will be.' There's a froth of bubbles in the blood at her side as she cuts off a sob. 'And here you are. Carrion-feeder. I can see it in your eyes. You may as well take it.'

It's hard to think. The haze of fear is so thick around him, so rich and cloying that he thinks he might throw up.

'No,' he says. 'I'm going to ask you some questions, though, if that's all right. Just — just a few.'

'The memorial,' she starts.

'No!' Jon cuts her off, harsher than he'd intended. 'Don't tell me about that. Tell me about…' He frowns. 'Laura.' The name trails knowledge: warm brown eyes, warm laugh.

Caitlyn stills. 'How,' she says.

'It doesn't matter how I know,' says Jon. 'You're right. I am a, a, a carrion-feeder. I could pull the tale of what just happened out of you, get you to tell me all of it, all the fear and horror. But I'm not going to.' The words nearly choke him. 'I don't want to.'

There's something wet on his cheek. He has a sudden moment of terror that outside of the comfortable current of fear, the change in pressure is no longer holding his eyes in place, breaking their tension, letting them slide out of their sockets and run down his cheeks in hot thick drops. Then, belatedly, he realises that he's simply crying.

Caitlyn's breath makes a sputtering, bloody sound beside him. 'What do you want to know?'

'Whatever you want to tell me,' Jon says. 'Tell me about Laura. You love her, don't you? Tell me — tell me about that.'

'You're a monster,' Caitlyn says. She is dying, and afraid, and correct. Jon can't blame her. 'What would you know about love?'

Jon lets out a short, sharp exhale, not quite a laugh. 'You'd be surprised.'

Caitlyn's body is sagging now. 'Laura looked after the children for me, back… Years ago now. Years. They're grown up and gone, of course. But Laura kept coming over, just to see me, she said. She took me on dates. We still go, every week. To the movies, all sorts.'

'That sounds nice.' Jon's voice is a thread, barely more than a whisper.

'I never got out so much. I thought I was happy at home, but she kept showing me more, all these things you could do, all these bits of the world, and I thought, that's so much brighter than I ever thought it was.'

The whirring of the tape recorder has a different tone to usual. Jon keeps one hand on it, forcing all his determination into it, keeping it running. With his other hand he indicates Caitlyn's.

'That's a lovely ring.'

'I surprised her.' The smile in Caitlyn's voice is a raw, wincing thing. 'I told her, she was always taking me out on excursions, it was my turn to plan something. Didn't tell her what. Then off we went to the church. I was just so worried she'd get the drop on me and propose first. Or turn around and leave when she found out. Of course she'd worked out what I was planning ahead of time. She's smart like that. Every birthday, absolute nightmare. The antics I go through.'

Her breathing is more and more hectic, her side around the shrapnel stretched and ragged. She's crying again.

'I don't want to leave her.'

Jon is useless. His head aches, spinning dry and hollow, and his heart aches. Caitlyn deserves to have someone better-equipped to help her through this. All he can think to do is keep talking. 'You mentioned children?'

Caitlyn nods. 'Three,' she says. 'Laura will look after them. They'll look after her, too, it's about time they started paying some of that back. They're good kids. They'll be brave.'

'Like their mother,' Jon says.

Caitlyn moves her hand suddenly from the wound in her side, clamps Jon's wrist. 'I'm scared.'

Then, from across the square, he hears Martin's voice, tremulous and afraid. 'Jon?'

No, Jon thinks. He's been so intent on Caitlyn, and so set on keeping any hint of his powers in check. He hadn't heard Martin coming back.

'I know,' he says to Caitlyn, desperately. 'I know you are. Thank you for telling me. About Laura, and the kids. I — thank you.'

'I love them,' Caitlyn says, almost violently, a sudden burst of ferocity. Her nails dig into Jon's wrist.

The tape recorder stops whirring.

'Jon? What's happened?'

Martin's voice is sharp with fear. Jon knows how it must look: here he is, crouched over a dead woman, tape recorder in hand.

'Martin,' he says.

His head is still spinning, and there's an uncomfortable ringing silence at the edge of his muffled senses. He feels sick, he notes, and fights down the wild temptation to laugh, because none of this is funny, and also because the last thing that Martin needs to see added to this tableau is for Jon to start cackling.

'She had a wife,' he tells Martin helplessly. 'A wife named Laura and three children.' Her blood leaves a tacky smear on his wrist, a brand.

'Oh, Jon.' Whatever Martin's reading in Jon's face must be pretty bad, he thinks. Maybe for once he even feels as bad as he looks.

Martin drops to his knees beside Jon, and puts a hand on his shoulder tentatively. Jon can feel him gearing up to ask, in the minute flex of his fingers.

'Did you take her statement?'

It's a genuine question, Jon realises. It's quiet, and just a little offset from composed, in the way that means Martin's trying very hard to keep his voice from wobbling. Martin has asked a question, and he's willing to listen to Jon's answer.

'Not exactly.' He raises his gaze from Caitlyn's body, moving it cautiously, like someone testing a limb that's recovering from having been broken. 'At least, I don't think so. Not a statement in the usual sense.'

'Then…' Martin, still tense, nods to the tape recorder.

Jon sighs. He's very tired, drained in a way he hasn't felt since the change happened. He supposes he should feel glad about that, since it would seem to suggest that his line of thinking was correct. He wants to fold himself up against Martin's warmth, close his eyes against the ringing hollowness. But he owes Martin an explanation.

'The Archive wants fear,' he starts, stumbling a little in his attempt to collect his thoughts. 'That's what's constantly keeping me going, what it gets out of this whole business. It's — I'm — thriving off of people's fears and their secrets and the things they don't want to share. I've been noticing… it's not interested in the other stuff. Not in love. Not in the things that keep people brave. I thought, if I could force it to confront some of that… well, at worst it might waste some of the Eye's attention. At best, it might hurt it. Poison it, so to speak.'

'The woman?'

'She had a statement.' Jon's beginning to be able to feel it again. 'I didn't take it. I just… asked her about her family. Forced the tape recorder to record, to pay attention. Listened to her talk. She wasn't compelled. I think… I think she just wanted someone to know, at the end. Even if her only option was me. She wanted someone to know how much she loved them.'

'Oh, love.' The weight of Martin's arms, the warm darkness of his chest, enclose Jon in safety. The Watcher's pressure is slowly building again, but it's still remote for the minute, like distant thunder. Jon feels scoured, empty.

'Did it work?' Martin's voice is a rumble against him. Jon turns his head sideways to answer.

'I think so.' He cracks the ghost of a mirthless smile. 'I certainly feel like shit, anyway. Whatever it did, Beholding didn't enjoy it.'

'No wonder,' Martin says. 'You couldn't have told me what you were planning? Scared me half to death.'

'I didn't want to disappoint you if it didn't work. And even if it did, it's not something to get our hopes up about. Inconveniencing the Eye won't do anything to stop any of the other powers.' He takes a sweater-flavoured breath. 'I'm going to keep doing it.'

'Are you sure?' Martin's voice is worried. 'It's hurting you too. We don't even know how much of an effect it might have on the Eye. Are you sure it's a good idea, doing this to yourself, running yourself into the ground in the hopes that some of it might carry over?'

'I don't want to,' Jon admits. 'The Archive part of me — it feels good. It feels good not to have to be tired, or hungry, or desperate. The whole world is set up to give me what I want without a fight, and I've been fighting for so long, and it feels good not to have to. It would feel good to just… let myself go. Let Jon go.' He pulls away slightly, enough to see Martin's jaw, its soft curve. 'But you love Jon. And he, I, love you. Doing this, doing something, even if it is, objectively, pointless, is keeping that part of me here. It's what I would have done before the change, I think.'

Martin makes a sort of despairing noise. 'That's inarguable,' he says. 'Not even the end of the world can keep you from being a stubborn reckless self-sacrificing idiot.'

Jon buries the tired, dredged-up tremble of his smile against Martin's neck. 'Thank you.'

*

It's surprisingly easy to find Melanie and Georgie, despite the combined inconveniences of Jon's inability to See them and the literal apocalyptic chaos around every corner. Jon and Martin are looking for Georgie and Melanie, and something — they never managed to glimpse what — is hunting them in turn, and it's sheer luck, or at least Jon hopes it is, that Georgie and Melanie turn out to be tracking down their pursuer, frightening it off. Jon has rarely been happier to see anyone.

Martin hugs them both, immediately, desperately, talking all the while, an almost ridiculous torrent of relief and concern. Jon stands to one side and watches them, forces his stare to draw them in, happiness aching inside him, twisting his already-feeble frame. Melanie's got a bandana with a skull and crossbones print tied around her eyes, and her What the Ghost hoodie is so worn and faded it could pass for a ghost itself. The lines around her mouth are deeper than they were last time he saw her. Georgie's rigged up a sash close to her body, out of which spill the black-and-white edges of the Admiral. There's a new, mostly-healed scar on her eyebrow. She's also carrying a bat.

'Both of you look much more post-apocalyptic than we do,' Martin tells them, as they finally end their hug.

'I’m having a hard time imagining anyone looking more post-apocalyptic than Jon,' Melanie says. 'Man's a walking wasteland.'

'Melanie. Georgie.' Jon takes a clumsy step towards them, then pauses. He's not sure how to behave. Does he thank them for being here? Apologise for ending the world?

'For goodness' sake,' Georgie says, exasperated. Then she steps forward and pulls him into a hug. There are tears in her voice. 'You're okay. You're here, you're okay. You're okay.'

'Give him here,' Melanie says, from the other side of Georgie, and then she's hugging him, too tightly, the hand that's not holding her cane gripping desperately into his shoulder. He can feel her shaking slightly.

'I'm sorry,' Jon says, without really meaning to. He's not even sure for what, specifically. He's sure he owes her multiple apologies by this point.

'Don't be an idiot,' she tells him. Her grip on his shoulder tightens briefly, then releases. 'We didn't come all the way from London just to be apologised at.'

'And don't even think about saying sorry for apologising,' Georgie adds. Jon, having opened his mouth to do just that, shuts it again.

The Admiral makes a disgruntled _mrrp_ , wriggling around in Georgie's harness.

'We should get out of the open,' Georgie says. 'We've been staying in the lobby of the fanciest hotel, it's great. Upstairs is a bit, ehhh,' which Jon interprets to mean _dangerous and terrifying_ , 'but the lobby's been safe so far. Perks of the end times: you can get away with hanging out in expensive places and nobody tells you to clear out because you don't belong there!'

Jon watches the group of them intently as they set out, still talking, still laughing. He thinks about how much they all mean to him, burns it into his watching mind. Georgie, in particular, is hard to focus on; paying too much attention to her feels like forcing the wrong ends of a magnet together. He forces anyway. You will see this. Fear is not all there is. There is also this. 

*

As it turns out, Georgie hadn't been overstating the fanciness of the hotel lobby. It's all gleaming panels, rich rugs and ornately twisting banister rails, and an honest-to-goodness crystal chandelier (dark, thank goodness, but which catches their torchlight with a rustle). They've taken refuge to one side of the imposing room, huddled in the glow of all the desk lamps they could gather like they're sitting around a campfire. The Admiral, freed from his indignity, is sitting with his back to them all, but deigning to let Jon scratch his ears.

They're all safe. Jon's awareness isn't picking up on any immediate dangers. They'd spent the afternoon catching up, pooling their knowledge, and the evening in preparing something to eat that's actually warm, thanks to a microwave that Martin had dragged up out of the hotel kitchen. Gradually, the conversation had dropped off, replaced by a contemplative silence.

It's a moment of peace. A good moment, as good as any, and, for all they know, the last good moment they might ever have. It's already more than Jon thought he'd ever get. He looks at Martin, leaning against the wall with his head tilted back, eyes closed. Notes how beautiful the curve of his cheek is, even exhausted and vulnerable in the lamplight.

The rush of butterflies in his stomach as he reaches for the bag with the tape recorder is so utterly, bizarrely, unfamiliarly mundane that he's caught off guard by it, and has to take a moment to fight through the grip of fear before he can place the feeling for what it is.

The click of the tape recorder switching on is very loud in the cavernous darkness of the lobby. Immediately, the others jolt to attention, Martin's eyes flying open with a burst of creative swearing, Georgie reaching for her bat.

'Just me,' Jon hurries to say, holding up the recorder before any of them can get any more on edge. 'Sorry.'

'Just the Archive of Fear getting ready to record a statement,' Melanie says. 'Thank goodness. For a minute I thought it might be something spooky.'

'Everything okay?' Martin asks. Jon nearly bites his own tongue off trying not to laugh.

'Yes. At least, I hope so. Obviously this won't be legally binding, as much as that means any more, but I figured it was best to do now, while we're all together. And if we happen to stumble across a registry office we can always redo it, I suppose.'

Martin's mouth starts to make a silent O shape.

'What,' says Melanie, at almost the exact same time as Georgie's whispered 'Oh my god.'

'It doesn't even have to count as a wedding, if you'd prefer,' Jon tells Martin. 'But if it's all right with everyone, I'd like to go ahead and make a statement.'

'Unbelievable,' Melanie says.

'Wait,' Martin says, and then swears a little bit. 'Sorry, sorry, just a second, I wasn't expecting us to do this _now_.' He reaches into one of the backpacks, pulls out the horrible sparkly notebook they'd found at a petrol station on their way down. 'Okay. Are you going first then, or —'

'I, uh, hadn't thought that far ahead,' Jon says, which is a terrible way to articulate the fact that he hadn't assumed that Martin would have been planning anything at all. 'You're sure this is all right? We really don't have to do it now, or like this. I should have checked first.'

' _Jon_ ,’ Martin says, rocking forwards. The lamplight gathers at the corners of his eyes, floods his curls (getting too long, they’ll need cutting soon) with gentle shadow. 'If you get cold feet and jilt me at the altar now, I swear. I promise, it's all right; go ahead, please.'

'Uh,' Jon says. 'Right, then.' He clears his throat, and wishes, nonsensically, fleetingly, that he had a cup of tea, or maybe a stack of papers to fidget with. He checks the recorder's running, then looks back over at Martin.

And then, when it comes to it, it isn't difficult after all, because looking at Martin feels like everything inside him is loosening, like a breath of soft air back, when breathing was a simple thing. He knows what he wants to say. He's been turning over the words in his mind for — months now, if he's honest, wearing them smooth and comfortable and shining.

'Statement of Jonathan Blackwood,' he says. The shape of it, out loud, is something uniquely lovely. He lets it settle over him, like a weighted blanket. Outside, the howling pressure of the sky is abruptly muted. He clears his throat, and speaks it again. 'Statement of Jonathan Blackwood, regarding his husband, Martin Blackwood.'

Martin makes a little choked sound. His eyes are spilling with tears. He's smiling at Jon through their little pool of light, the smile that Jon treasures most, warm and aching and hopelessly fond.

'Martin,' Jon says, and stops, ordering his words. 'I realise we didn't talk about me taking your name beforehand. Then again, I've been determinedly taking your sweaters for long enough now that I feel you ought to have seen this coming. Your name is… a part of you, and as far as I'm living at all at the moment, in the human sense, I live most in you. In what I feel for you. You're… resilient, and hopeful, and determined beyond hope; you're kind and caring and resolute and resourceful and brave and you give every moment meaning. I can't feel worthy of everything you are, but if you'll let me, I'm resolved to try.'

The tape recorder is whirring harshly. Jon turns and fixes it with a death stare. 'Martin Blackwood,' he tells it. 'My husband. I have made a promise to him and I am going to keep that promise with whatever I have left: _I will not leave him._ I will be his companion and his closeness and his anchor. I will find him comfort in the dark and freedom in the void and a string in the labyrinth, and _I know him_. I trust him. If you burn me I will warm him, and if you hunt me I will spare him and if you cut me I will tend his wounds.' He gives a faint smile, letting the tension drop away, as he looks back over to Martin. Whether or not Martin accepts it, it's all he can give. The final words are soft, open. 'Til death do us part.'

'So bloody dramatic,' Georgie’s whispering under her breath. It sounds a little like she's crying, but Jon isn't willing to look away from Martin long enough to find out. Martin is staring back. He looks a little bit stunned by the magnitude of Jon's promising. Jon doesn't know why, really. The depths of his dedication to Martin ought to be obvious from space. 

'Oh,' Martin says, softly. It's almost questioning. Jon gives a tiny shrug in reply, a helpless lift of his shoulders.

'You're bleeding,' Martin says, indicating Jon's face. Jon, bewildered, raises his hand. There's a trickle of blood from his nose.

A square of gauze sails at him from Melanie's direction. It hits him in the side of the face. He realises, the second after it hits him, that he didn't See it coming.

'Just a nosebleed,' he says. 'It's fine, I promise. I feel okay.' It's the truth, surprisingly. His ears ring a little in the hush that's still settled around them. But there's no feeling of nausea, no sign of the aching headache he'd been expecting.

'Are you sure?' Martin asks, worried.

Jon smiles at him. 'I'm sure. Will you…' He indicates the service station notebook.

Martin frowns in response. 'I'm not doing that. You've felt like shit every time you've taken a statement like this. What if it hurts you?'

'It won't,' says Jon through the gauze.

'You don't know that!'

'No,' Jon says. 'I don't Know that.' He waits a second for the words to sink in. 'I can't feel it right now. The pressure, the fear, the information, any of it. And it doesn't hurt. I'm tired, but that's all. I'm… separate. Cut off from Beholding.'

'Great!' Martin says. 'Who knows what that'll do to you at this point. Hey, Georgie, Melanie, any bets on which of Jon's organs shuts down first?'

Jon laughs. Martin stares at him like he's dying.

'It's not completely gone,' he tells Martin. 'It'll come back. It's like it's, I don't know, veiled. Like… while we're under the canopy, we're shielded from the sky.'

'Right,' says Martin, love and confusion suffusing the syllable.

Jon takes the gauze away, tentatively. The nosebleed has stopped. He points this fact out to Martin.

'Please?' he asks. 'It may be selfish, but. I'd really like to hear what you were planning to say.'

Martin straightens his shoulders, gives Jon a look. 'Okay,' he says. 'Stop me if anything feels wrong.'

'It couldn't.' Jon's aware that he's smiling, widely, openly.

'Okay, then.' Martin flicks through the pages. 'I had better things written, I'd been collecting them for ages, and then when the car blew up it set fire to them all. I thought about saving the ashes for you, as a sort of… Prentiss callback, but then I decided that would be creepy, and we had enough to carry anyhow, so.' He takes a deep breath. 'Jonathan Sims.'

'Jonathan Blackwood,' Jon tells him. He can see the reflection of the joy that's spreading through him in Martin's eyes.

'Jonathan Blackwood,' says Martin, and the sound of it, each syllable, is an ember-glow of warmth. 'The world is terrible, and frightening, and bad things happen every day, and the amount of fear that you have to bear is — I can't even imagine it. But somehow, despite it all, I get to have this.' He reaches out through the lamplight, brushes Jon's wrist. Jon relaxes into the touch, feeling the crease at the corners of his eyes soften, and Martin laughs gently. 'Yeah. That. Every expression, every reaction. And not just the good ones. I get to love you when you're tired and afraid and hurting and I get to watch you stubbornly trying, every day. Even when you're giving up, even when you feel like you're not human. I am so lucky to get to have that. I love you, Jon. I love all of you. And I'm going to keep on loving you for as long as I can, if you'll take me.'

'Of course,' Jon says. He starts to wipe his eyes with the bloody gauze, stops, uses the sleeve of his sweater instead. Martin gives a watery laugh.

'Of course,' he echoes.

'Oh,' Jon says, remembering. He reaches into his pocket, and fishes out the keys, and swears quietly as he fumbles one of them off the keyring. 'I, ah, don't have a ring, but I've still got the keys to the safehouse. I thought this might sort of be a ring-to-be. If we ever get the chance, we could have them melted down and made into rings. If you'd like.'

He takes Martin's hand, losing himself for a minute in the touch, and folds the key into Martin's palm. Martin's eyes meet his, and he nods, clearing his throat.

'You may kiss,' Melanie says.

'Oh, may we,' says Jon. There's hardly any bite of acerbity to it. He thinks he may never be capable of acerbity again. Martin's smiling at him, warm in the light. Jon feels… ordinary. Quiet. Loved.

'Yes, we may,' Martin tells him, and tilts his face towards Jon's. It's a soft kiss, a sure brush of safety and warmth. Jon closes his eyes for a second. Then he opens them again. He wants to see this. The fear will be back, he knows, and the morning will undoubtedly bring some new dread and horror. But whatever they're facing, they are, at least, together. Jon looks at them all, at Georgie with the Admiral on her lap, Melanie holding her hand tight. At Martin. Especially at Martin. He looks, and lets his vision be flooded with love and lamplight.

**Author's Note:**

> trying to get this posted before season five airs was a nightmare and if there are any typos a. i apologise and b. that's why
> 
> find me having tma emotions on tumblr @ [archivisims](https://archivisims.tumblr.com)!


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